Troy and Janet McMahon are two of my pastor friends who get the theology of sending. Together they planted Restore Community Church in Kansas City. In their first ten years, Restore Community Church helped plant forty-three other churches. They clearly have caught the sending bug and live with a sending mindset. I am so impressed with these two that I have joined their team at Restore. They are my pastors.
Janet gave a great talk at the Exponential 2018 Conference in Washington, DC. Here is a part of what she said:
“There is a theology of sending that originates with a triune God. The habits of the trinity are a picture of sending. Often we talk about the trinity as the ultimate community, the sweet and loving community of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, demonstrating the bond, the oneness that we all are created to long for. But in order to extend this loving community to others, the trinity extended itself. The Father sent the son – Jesus – and then the Father sends the promised Comforter, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit who would be sent to live inside of us.”
Don’t miss those points:
The theology of sending originates with a triune God.
The habits of the trinity are a picture of sending.
In order to extend community to others, the trinity extended itself.
And don’s miss the build out that continues:
The Father sends the Son.
Jesus sends out the twelve.
Later Jesus sends out the seventy-two.
And at the end, Jesus sends out all of His followers.
The point of the sweet community that we have with Jesus and his followers is not to just gather and soak in the sweetness. The point is to gather so that we can send them out!
Jesus said “As the Father has sent me, now I send you.” John 20:21
We are just as sent as Jesus was sent by the Father!
Rick Warren said for years that “God measures a church not by its seating capacity, but by its sending capacity.” He also taught that you bring them in, grow them up, and send them out.
How have we managed to be content with just bringing them in?
How have we managed to stop with gathering?
How have we become content with just measuring how many are coming?
We have settled for a theology of gathering and forgotten our theology of sending.
Troy and Janet get it! That is why their church has planted forty-five other churches in the past eleven years. They have decided that ministry is about having kids that have kids that have kids. They have decided that sending people out to plant new churches and new ministries is what legacy is all about. They are practicing a theology of sending that is bigger and better than their theology of gathering.
Restore Church is not defined by the 1400 that gather in her services every weekend. Restore Church is defined by the forty-five churches that have been sent out to plant new churches that now reach tens of thousands every weekend.
That is how you change the spiritual landscape of a city – by sending people out, planting churches that plant churches that plant churches.
I have lived long enough to know that the best part of life is having grandkids. Kids are great. Grandkids are greater. I believe grandkids are God’s reward for not killing your kids. They rock!
The same is true with a theology of sending. I admire pastors and churches and believers who want to reproduce – who want to have kids – who want to reach new people for Christ. But I admire even more those pastors and churches and believers who want to have grandkids – who want to reach people that will reach people that will reach people, and who want to plant churches that plant churches that plant churches. Life is about the grandkids.
The goal with all kids is not to keep them at home forever. The goal is to raise them, send them out, and encourage them to have kids of their own. The goal is to send them out as missionaries in this world.
Dick Hillis, who founded OC International, says it this way: “Every heart with Christ, a missionary; every heart without Christ, a mission field.” When we start seeing every Christ follower as a missionary, and every person that is far from God as a mission field, we will get serious about sending people out.
The institutional approach to church leads us to survival.
The attractional approach to church leads us to growth.
The missional approach to church leads us to world change.
What is your approach to church?
What are you aiming for?
What is your theology of sending?